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Sehnsucht, D123

Introduction

Between An Laura and this song, Schubert had written Gretchen am Spinnrade on 19 October 1814. A lesser composer, once he had found a seam of gold, would have attempted to continue to mine it. But with Schubert's response to texts, there is never a formula, much less a winning one; even the name Goethe was not the 'Open, Sesame' to stockpile of flawless jewels. It so happened that Schubert had found the perfect solution to the problem of how to weave Gretchen, her predicament and her spinning wheel into a seamless unity. With other poems he was less lucky. His failures are always honourable (to call them failures at all is only to judge them by the standards of the acknowledged masterpieces) and it is always interesting to see what he was aiming at as, in Capell's words, 'he hesitated, he experimented, he fumbled.' It is well known that Goethe mistrusted composers who would allow their musical fancies to detract from his poems. This setting of Sehnsucht is a demonstration of what Goethe feared most about music's power to submerge his lyrics, and it is significant that it was not included in the consignments of songs later sent to the poet in an effort to interest him in Schubert's Lieder.

When Schubert makes a recitative out of Matthisson's Trost. An Elisa, few would bemoan the fact that stilted classical metre has been swept aside in favour of 'staging' the poem effectively. But when the lively, breathless, culminative impact of Goethe's anapaestic rhythm for Sehnsucht is vitiated by Schubert's stop-go alternation between recitative, aria and piano interlude, there is valid cause for complaint. This is a text which Beethoven surely got right in his setting of 1810, and Schubert seems to have gone to great lengths to try something different. It may be that Schubert simply found the internal rhythm of the poem too relentless for comfortable musical expression, and was doing his best to take some of the wind out of its sails; it has a type of passionate bluster which is more of a Beethovenian than a Schubertian phenomenon. It also cannot be denied that some of Schubert's pictures and episodes within the song are charmingly done: the swift flight of the ravens in verse 2, and the corresponding music for the flowing brook in the second half of Verse 4 give some intimation of how the song may have been set as an enchanting moto perpetuo. The interlude for the singing bird (Verse 3) is in some ways admirable (the poem after all mentions lingering and listening, and we are made to do both), but its music-box effect adds an arch touch of eighteenth-century bergerette to what is in fact a tempestuously romantic poem. The interlude for the setting sun (an image more charmingly and economically handled in Adelaide) kills stone dead any culminative rhythmic impetus the piece may have had, yet the poet's shining star is made to reverberate in empty space with the simplest and most telling of musical means. Also excellent is the depiction of astonishment in the last verse—it is a fragment of a slow waltz, and the gradual return to the rumbustious tempo which closes the piece with the poet throwing himself at his beloved's feet in a precipitous downward scale. But there is just too much lavish musical detail throughout the song to enable Goethe's poem to achieve the inevitable onrushing sweep which its metre demands.

Recordings

‘This would have been a massive project for even the biggest international label, but from a small independent … it is a miracle. An ideal Christ ...‘Please give me the complete Hyperion Schubert songs set—all 40 discs—and, in the next life, I promise I'll "re-gift" it to Schubert himself … fo ...» More

‘An established and thoughtful interpreter of Schubert, one who sings German like a native’ (Gramophone)‘His keen insight and regard for the words illuminate these fascinating songs. Hard as it now is to find fresh words of praise for Graham Johnson's pe ...» More

What is it that tugs at my heart so? What lures me outside, twisting and wrenching me out of my room and my home? Over there the clouds disperse around the rocks. I would like to cross over there, I would like to go there!

Now the ravens hover in gregarious flight; I join them and follow their course. We fly above mountains and ruins; she dwells below; I look out for her.

There she comes, strolling along; I immediately hasten, like a singing bird, to the bushy wood. She lingers and listens, smiling to herself: ‘He sings so charmingly, and sings to me!’

The departing sun gilds the hills; the musing beauty does not heed it. She strolls by the brook, through the meadows; darker and darker grows her winding path.

Suddenly I appear, a shining star. ‘What is that sparkling up there, so near and yet so far?’ And when, with astonishment, you catch sight of its light, I shall lie at your feet. There I shall be contented!